The Cell

              STAR RATING

                   INFO

Year: 2000

Running Length: 1:47

Rated: R (for violence, gore, nudity, sexuality, and profanity

Genre: sci-fi / thriller

Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Vincent D'Nofrio, Vince Vaughn

Director: Tarsem

Screenplay: Mark Protosevich

                                                    PLOT

A child psychiatrist who can go into peoples minds, goes into a serial killer's to find out where his latest victim is hidden.

                                                  REVIEW

About a week ago, in my Hollow Man revie I wrote  "I just want one film that has completely original ideas and makes them work. Hopefully I'll get that in The Cell" well hope springs eternal and I got my wish.


The Cell is the best movie of the summer, and certainly the most original film I've seen since Being John Malkovich. It has elements from Silence of The Lambs and Se7en, but also 2001 and the weirdest films of David Lynch. It takes all these elements and somehow makes them work, and work splendidnly.

The premise is a bit complicated, but in the film it all makes sense. A child psychiatrist (Jennifer Lopez) is part of an experimental program where using strange body suits that are held in mid-air and a blue mask with what looks like computer chips on the inside, can see into the mind of the other person connected. She is helping a boy in a coma, whose mind is like a vast desert with the little extras of whatever he decides to add. It is going fairly well, but it is a long process, and there is no proof of progress the parents of the child want out. She finally gets another 6 months to work with the boy, when a quite more complicated dilemma occurs. Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Nofrio) drowns young women and then bleaches and stiches them to look like "dolls". When the police finally catch him he is in a coma due to a rare kind of schizophrenia, but not before capturing his last victim and putting her in "The Cell" a small room that periodically fills up with water until it fills completely and the woman inside slowly drowns.

The FBI is frantically searching for this woman, but with no good leads, and Stargher unable to speak, they have only Lopez and the team to turn to. This all sets up the core of the film which is Lopez trying to make her way through this strange world, to both find where the girl is, and help the young Stargher.

Some of the best moments of the film are the quiet ones. The scene where Vince Vaughn as an FBI agent in charge of the Stargher case talks with Lopez, and hints at being abused as a child.  Or when Lopez and Stargher talk about him "freeing" a bird by killing it. The dialogue suprisingly is not a backdrop to great visual effects, and strange sets, it is not just functional dialogue. In fact the dialogue is one of the best things about the film. But I will admit I oohed and ahhed at the sets of this film which were even better than I had expected from the man who brought you REM's Losing My Religion music video. If this doesn't get nominations for Best Set Decoration, Costumes, Director, and Actress then there is something seriously wrong with the "Academy".

If you are sick of seeing the same lame-brained action films. Or the same old schtick on horror. Or "comedies" with no laughs, only fart jokes. Go see The Cell I guarantee you it is even better then you think.

-T.J. Larson

For some seriosuly cool The Cell pictures click HERE!

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